The Men in Black (well, he was
the first to draw them in a published story; not sure if he was working off
another artist’s design)

The hat, the glasses, the cheekbones, and of course the setting in an entomologists gallery.
Vector 13 is creepy stuff.
Words by Shaky Kane

Notable characteristics:

I don’t suppose people
debate the topic much, even on the dustiest corners of the internet, but it
seems to me that Ridgway has the accolade of being the best artist at drawing
both young children and very elderly folk. You could argue about if he’s also
the best at drawing grizzled, manly men, but his name belongs in that
conversation, too.

What it is, is work is
full of lines. Wrinkles, stubble and individual hairs most obviously, but also
just a generally sketch-like quality to all his work.

There’s also a
facility with horror, atmosphere, and grounding things in nature. He surely has
drawn more trees and rustling leaves than any other 2000AD art droid.

Also, eyes. I don’t
know that any other artist has come close to drawing out as fearful and, at
times, viscerally disgusted a reaction as Ridgway has managed, time and again.*

This is a dude who really takes delight in carving out a person's heart.
Words by Gordon Rennie

On John:

I don’t know Ridgway’s
work outside of 2000AD, but I’ve an idea he was something of an old hand in the
UK
comics scene before he was tapped by Tharg, along with the likes of Arthur
Ranson and John Burns. He always had that feel of a seasoned pro who just knew
what he was doing, and knew who he was doing it for – namely, young boys who
wanted cracking adventure stories that didn’t talk down to them.

In fact, on that
point, Ridgway himself said in a Megazine interview that he specifically
preferred to draw stories aimed at this audience, and didn’t care for the
adultification (or whatever the word is) that was en vogue in UK comics of the
late 80s onwards. Its apposite, then, that Ridgway’s work for Tharg during that
period was consistently excellent.

The children/old
people thing came up almost from the beginning with Ridgway, notably on one-off
spooky tale Candy and the Catchman,
which is sort of about the fear of ageing (as only a lifelong aesthete like
Grant Morrison could feel that fear).

Moving onto Judge Dredd, Ridgway was, I think, one
of the first to really get behind the notion that Dredd himself was entering
late middle age. No less healthy or athletic in build, but certainly more
wrinkly of chin.

A repellant gentlemanWorsd by Wagner & Grant

Under Ridgway’s pen,
Dredd’s foes aged up a bit, too. The
Raggedy Man is of indeterminate age, but his demeanour gives the same vibes
as that of a retiree. And, yes, a touch of horror. Miss Marple, over in Alzheimer’s Block, is a true retiree.
This provides a perfect example of marrying the right artist to the story. It’s
a straight forward mystery with seriously spooky overtones, but a rich vein of
comedy all the way through.

The grateful deadWords by John Wagner

At the same time,
Ridgway was marking quite a mark with a story that seemed to come somewhat out
of nowhere: Summer Magic. Once again, it combines a convincingly rendered child
– young Luke Kirby – with convincingly rendered grown-ups (his mum) and
slightly creepy older people (his mysterious uncle). Also, werewolves, trees,
night terrors and just a superb combination of adventure and horror.

Luke Kirby has found adventure - but can he handle it?Words by Alan McKenzie

Luke Kirby’s further
adventures retained a certain charm, and an endless grounding in the natural
world, but I’m not sure he ever topped this first foray.

Getting up to wizardish wheezes with pals in the woods

The Dead Man. The Deam Man! How bloodty great was that series - and how amazing that it holds up so well on re-reads, even when, at the time, it was all about the mystery of 'who is the Dead Man?'.

A rare John Ridgway cover

Another boy hero for the ages, Yassa Povey. Two amazingly horrible villains in Nausea and Phobia. Yet more bug-eyed terror. And a hideously scarred eldster in the title role. It's a masterclass in storytelling, and also straddles the line between adventure and horror.

Yassa Povey meets the Dead Man. A scary start, but only about the fourth most scary thing that's going to happen to the poor bastard...Words by John Wagner

Ridgway’s next
co-creation was far less well feted. Yes, it’s Junker, occasional contender for worst ever series. But not for the
art. Ridgway constructs a generic 2000AD-lite grizzled antihero, and teams him
up with a sort of rat-lizard (actually quite fun), and a scheming alien
princess. It’s all a bit Star Wars (or possibly a bit Firefly, if that
show had existed a decade earlier).

Junker doesn't trust women. Raz is more intersted in food.Words by Michael Fleisher

Notoriously, Ridgway
had to cope with scripts that demanded impossibilities such as the hero
shooting from the open window of a spaceship in space (or something like that).
He makes a game effort of it all. More on the story itself in the upcoming
entry for writer Michael Fleisher, but in tone, there’s nothing really wrong
with Junker, certainly as drawn by
Ridgway. Certainly I was into it for the first half, at the time. This story,
and Ridgway generally, felt like they were my 2000AD (as a then 12/13-year
old). Much more accessible than snide-y / arty stuff like Time Flies or Hewligan’s
Haircut that Tharg seemed to like so much in the Nerve Centre.

Junker's still not too sure about women; Ridgway is possibly starting to care a little less at this point, too.Words by Michael Fleisher

With a pro like
Ridgway, you’re going to get solid storytelling, well realised scenery, a range
of emotions from the characters, and bursts of tension.

See also Calhab Justice, which Ridgway
spearheaded over in the Megazine. Lots of promise, especially in the art,
slightly let down by a script that, to my mind, needed stronger editorial guidance.
Or maybe I was the problem, not really having any context for concepts around
whiskey clans and stolen scone stones, being as I am a dirty Euro-Souther**.

Once again, Ridgway
delivers on the natural world, setting scenes in the highlands. But what shows
up more in this series are his people. There’s a lot of shouting, emoting and
indeed laughing. An early Christmas (well, I guess technically New Year’s)
episode was particularly effective at setting the overall tone, which balanced
out the sense of Cal-Hab as a neglected, impoverished place with the inherent
warmth and comedy of the characters.

It all went a bit
loopy after Ridgway left, which may or may not have been a factor in why he
stopped working on the series.

Back in 2000AD,
Ridgway was once again called upon to develop new characters and ideas. He drew
the first episode of Vector 13, and
may or may not have designed the look of the Men in Black, series hosts and
occasional bit-players in other stories of the era. Although I suspect Shaky Kane, who wrote the opening epsiode and was clearly a big fan of Forteana, probably had a hand in it, too. Lest you forget, Vector 13 was a new way of doing Future
Shocks with a narrator, with stories tending to follow the sorts of things one
might find in TV’s the X-Files. Overall, Vector
13 has, I think the highest hit-rate of good-bad stories of any 2000AD
series in this format***

Severed head no. 1Words by Shaky Kane

Severed head No. 2

Darkness Visible arguably functioned as a more fleshed-out
version of Vector 13. It followed private investigator Alec Holland, who could
have gone on to pursue all sorts of UK-based goings-on, but as it is we only
got to read the first half of a mystery about a cult. Ridgway is the man to do
this sort of gentle, dread-based spookiness (ably helped by colourist Gina
Hart, who seemed, in the end, a better fit for Ridgway than Tim Perkins, who he
previously been paired with on Junker and various Dredds).

Yup, you'll need a gun if you're going to Wales.Words by Nick Abadzis

That seemed to be it
for quite a while – until we were gifted with a burst of activity in the
new-look Megazine of the Alan Barnes era. After a sustained dodgy period,
artwise, (rather a lot of Volumes 2 and 3) the Megazine looked to old hands
such as Ridgway to bring it back on course. And so we got to see the man’s take
on Missionary Man, Armitage and Young Middenface McNulty.

Grizzly Man No. 1

Grizzly Man No. 2

More charming boyhood aventures with young McNultyWords by Alan Grant

Sometimes, a cry and a cuddle is what you need. We don;t see nearly enough of this sort fo thing in comics, I reckon.Words by Alan Grant

Once again, it’s the
scenery that sticks out in my mind, along with the emotional core of the
characters.

If there’s one thing I
haven’t explored so far it’s the fact that Ridgway’s style is really not like
anyone else (Vince Locke, maybe?). It’s not at all flashy. At times, even, it
can look a little childish – I can certainly imagine the Bisley-o-philes of
1989 wondering why someone who art was, for want of a better word, uncool, was
getting so much work in the Prog. I’ve been guilty of thinking those thoughts,
too – but every time I’ve read a Ridgway story, I’m always struck by how
visceral it really is.

Yes, sometimes, the
poses are a little stiff, and sometimes the wrinkliness of the skin seems too
much – but damned if it doesn’t sell what each character is thinking and
feeling. And damned if it doesn’t push that envelope to extremes that few other
artists reach. H’mm, Defoe needs a
new artist – I wonder if it might find a happy home with an old master..?

2 comments:

It was a tremendous thrill when I heard I'd be working with John on Calhab. I was a big fan of his work on Hellblazer previously. He was too busy to continue on the strip and Lol took over. In fact it was Lol turning down Family Snapshot that allowed John to return to the strip if only for a short time. Mind you, he was disappointed on his return at not having many opportunities to draw Judge Ed MacBrayne (who is sent away on Page 1 of Family Snapshot). The more articles eulogising John as one of the great comics artists the better.